South Puget Sound trans teens seeking gender-affirming medical care have lost a medical ally: Tacoma’s MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital will shut down its Gender Health Clinic this week.
A hospital spokesperson confirmed that 320 current patients receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and other medications at the clinic will need to get those medications elsewhere. More than 150 families were on the waiting list for care at the hospital at the time of the closure announcement.
In a statement, MultiCare placed the blame for the closure squarely on the shoulders of the Trump administration:
“Due to recent escalations at the federal level to eliminate medical interventions to treat gender dysphoria for minors nationwide, as well as investigations and significant penalizations of health care organizations that provide such care, MultiCare Health System has made the difficult choice to close the MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Gender Health Clinic.
“This was an incredibly painful decision, and one that we wish that we did not have to make,” hospital officials wrote.
Federal pressures hit all hospitals providing gender-affirming care
Federal pressure to stop hospitals from providing gender-affirming medical care has been felt by all gender-affirming medical providers in the region and throughout the nation. Seattle Children’s Hospital has not closed its gender-affirming care program. However, it remains under federal investigation regarding its practices. Seattle Children’s is operating and accepting referrals for adolescents.
According to the statement, MultiCare has tried in myriad ways to keep the clinic open:
“Over the last year, we have worked to find options that would allow us to continue to care for this important group of patients. Unfortunately, continuing to provide gender-care-related medical treatment to minors puts our organization and our providers at too great a risk for government investigation and enforcement actions, including cutting off Medicare and Medicaid payments to MultiCare’s entire health system.”
Loss of those funds would be devastating for local families:
“Nearly 75% of MultiCare patients — and more than 62% of Mary Bridge Children’s patients — depend on Medicare and Medicaid,” MultiCare officials wrote. “Loss of this funding not only undermines MultiCare’s ability to operate, but more critically, threatens patients’ access to essential care in every region that MultiCare offers care.”
Patients currently being seen at the Multicare Mary Bridge Gender Health Clinic will be able to receive behavioral health care at the hospital, and staff are working to direct those patients to other providers.
Trans youth under attack
In December, the administration of President Donald Trump acted to erase what he once called “a stain on our Nation’s history” by establishing new rules that effectively ban gender-affirming care for minors throughout the United States. To ensure doctors comply, the administration said it will refuse or pull back federal funding from hospitals that offer such treatment. At a time when hospitals are trying to figure out how to keep doors open in the face of current Medicaid cuts (and those coming down the pike) few are likely to challenge Trump’s no-funding hammer.
The proposed new U.S. Department of Health and Human Serviecs rules were announced a day after Republicans in the House of Representatives approved legislation making it a crime (punishable by a find or up to 10 years in prison) to provide transgender minors with gender-affirming care. That proposal would Senate approval.
And this month in Olympia, lawmakers said they will not hear an initiative to block transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports in committee, all but ensuring that it will go to voters in November.
Initiative Measure No. IL26-638 (IL26-638) is backed by the political committee Let’s Go Washington and conservative hedge fund manager Brian Heywood. The group turned in more than 400,000 signatures for the initiative.
